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National Transportation Safety Conference Next Week

The Department of Transportation has announced a two-day national transportation safety conference to take place in Washington, D.C., beginning March 2.

“During this conference we intend to make a real difference for the next millennium in reducing the number of deaths and injuries resulting from transportation-related accidents,” says Secretary of Transportation Rodney Slater.The goal of the conference is to develop a Transportation Safety Action Plan for the nation that identifies specific strategies to save lives and reduce injuries. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, each year about 44,500 Americans lose their lives in transportation-related incidents and another 3.4 million are injured. Unlike the truck and bus safety summit that was scheduled for early December and canceled at the last minute, this conference will focus on all modes of transportation: highways, railways, waterways and airways.The conference will be held on March 2-3, 1999, at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Washington, D.C. The centerpiece is a National Town Hall Meeting, a satellite teleconference linking the Washington, D.C.-based audience with community leaders and dignitaries in Atlanta, Detroit and San Francisco. Citizens in those cities will share inspirational stories on transportation-related experiences that resulted in lives lost and saved. Panel discussions will follow the satellite broadcast. They will be led by experts in safety and will review roles of the federal government, industry and the public in making safe transportation choices.Technology exhibits will demonstrate the latest developments in transportation safety.